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On May 18, 2016, U-Impact partner European Citizen Action Service ECAS carried out an international conference on European Citizenship summing up the results of citizen engagement throughout the U-Impact project and beyond and addressing the major challenges EU citizenship is facing in the current crisis in Europe.

The project “From Citizen Involvement to Policy Impact” (U-Impact) coordinates citizen involvement with the public authorities on national and European level in eight EU member states and one candidate state in order to develop a mechanism for increased impact of citizen initiatives on the policy making process in the EU. The project specifically targets the European Parliament elected in 2014 and aims at increasing the citizen participation in the policy making process of EP in line with its increased power and competences in the Union. U-Impact consist of a series of policy initiatives developed by citizens across borders in the 9 participating countries with the aim of improving important everyday aspects of their lives as European citizens and directly targets policy impact on European and national level. The aims of the project include:

improving citizen’s understanding of the new power structure of the Union and the new role of Parliament as well as the opportunities to interact and impact its decision making process;

help create a sustainable platform for increased pan-European citizen participation;

offer concrete solutions to specific European citizen problems and have them debated with European and national policy makers;

create an inclusive long lasting network for policy debate and impact involving citizens across borders building on their cultural diversity and promoting the development of a common European public space;

U-Impact builds on the positive experience of the partners in the implementation of the project “Joint Citizen Action for a Stronger, Citizen-Friendly Union” (JoiEU) under which participants have debated and developed policy recommendations in several areas related to European citizenship; U-Impact fosters a meaningful debate with policy-makers, including the European Parliament and helps create mechanisms for turning citizen involvement into effective citizen impact on EU policy.

Active Citizens for Common European Solutions (ACCES) Initiative Launched

In the heat of the refugee crisis U-Impact launches a citizen initiative on the freedom of movement and refugee dilemma facing European citizens and EU leaders. The focus is on active civil society involvement in the political debates about the refugees, about European solidarity and about the basic freedom of movement. The U-Impact initiative aims at getting citizens from the EU, the candidate countries and the European Neighborhood actively involved in the current debate about freedom of movement and solidarity in Europe. Read the rest of this entry »